The local head of the GOP was arrested Thursday night for solicitation of prostitition. William Coder, 25, director of the Lancaster County GOP executive committee, resigned on Friday.

Sex between consenting adults is legal. Commerce is legal. Why shouldn't prostitution be legal? Instead of quoting George Carlin, though, Coder simply lies, saying he's innocent, caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. I miss the old days, when Republicans were the good guys, and the bad guys were Democrats, like Mayor Daley of Chicago.

The wrong place, of course, was in Lancaster's red light district, soliciting a prostitute. The wrong time, of course, when was the cops were watching. Like another GOPer who claimed to have a wide stance, however, he thinks we're stupid.

Insurance Savings

There's an ad running from Allstate. People switching from Geico to Allstate save an average of $438 or some such number (I'm sure I remember it incorrectly) on their insurance. The ad doesn't claim that all insurance is cheaper with Allstate. It doesn't claim that all insurance is that much cheaper with Allstate. It says nobody is willing to move from Geico to Allstate if they only save $100 or $200 or $300.

Would you switch auto insurance companies for $300? I think most people would. It's actually saying, "Boy, nobody likes us, and they won't switch to us unless we really make it worth their while. Of course, at the same time, the other insurance companies are all saying that people who switch to them save hundreds of dollars, too. They think we're stupid.

It's pretty easy to manipulate your underwriting schedule so that people driving 1953 Studebakers pay almost nothing for their insurance. Then, they contact all the owners of 1953 Studebakers in the country and tell them that the company has special rates for people in their situation; ask for a quote. Somebody switches, and voila, you have substantiation for the fact that people can save hundreds by switching insurance.

Tax Preparation

H&R Block advertises that if you get audited - and virtually nobody gets audited among the low-rent customers HRB caters to - then they will accompany you to the audit to explain how the return was prepared, and HRB will pay any penalties and interest if they prepared your taxes wrong.

Now, what are they really saying? They're saying "We guarantee that you'll pay at least all the taxes you need to pay." If you overpay your taxes, there are no penalties and interest. It'd be a much better guarantee if they said, "If you get audited, and have to pay a lot of penalties and interest, we're gonna charge you extra, because we were so aggressive in trying to save you taxes." They think we're stupid.

Do you ever see any reasonable guarantees on television? How about an airline saying, "If the plane hasn't taken off within 30 minutes of your boarding it, we'll allow you to escape from our plane, even without posting bond." That'd be a useful guarantee. You won't catch me on an airliner again until someone offers that guarantee. But you won't see that guarantee soon, if ever. They think we're stupid.

All The Gold In California

We switched banks about 8 years ago, to Blue Ball National Bank. They've been playing the "bank name of the week club" game, first changing the name of the bank to "Community Banks", which was a really sad name. Can you think of a name that's more generic? It tells consumers, "of all the banks in the world, we're one of them." And then they changed their name to Susquehanna Bank. Now, that's an improvement in one way - it's distinctive. Except that they can't seem to decide if they are "the green bank" or whatever. Their logo is a swoosh, as if they were the Nike bank.

In any case, I used a brand-spanking-new debit card at Olive Garden a few years ago. The waitress disappeared with the card, and came back with the slip for me to sign a few minutes later. I put the card away and didn't use it for a while. There were funds coming into that account, but I simply transferred them into the other account, and we did all the spending from the other account.

Suddenly, there were charges showing up on that card. Someone donated $10 to a national charity from a website. Then, when that worked, they went to a WalMart in the pacific northwest, and bought a bunch of stuff, using the card. They didn't sign for it, and they didn't use a PIN number. Walmart doesn't require that.

Eventually, I got my money back. The manager of the Olive Garden said that waitress only worked there one day, and never showed up again, didn't even collect her paycheck. Well, not from them, that is. She apparently did quite well writing down the numbers of Visa cards, which could be sold to thieves who would duplicate the cards. I can hardly blame the bank for that screwup.

Double-Dipping At Weis

Then, last year, I wrote a check to pay my gas bill at Weis. The check got deposited both electronically and manually, so that I was charged twice. The gas company only got the payment once. I talked to the bank, pointed out that my account has been debited twice for the same amount, same check number. They refused to help. I needed to straighted this out myself. It ended up taking me a week for Weis to return my money.

Do I think it was Weis's fault? Actually, I think it was an employee who figured out how to tap my account twice, and stick the difference in his pocket. There was a cashier at WalMart recently who sold gift cards, failed to activate them, then activated other gift cards which she used to buy stuff with. Possibly, however, it was just someone inadequately trained by Weis. Whether it's dishonesty or incompetence, however, a business is liable for the acts of their employees because the employees are agents of the company. Businesses need to provide adequate training and supervision of employees in positions of trust.

Keeping A Close Eye

Now, ever since then, I've been keeping a fairly close eye on my bank accounts, and so when I saw one evening that there had been a $94 debit to my checking account by Bank of America, I made plans to visit my bank in the morning. By the time morning had rolled around, there had also been a $1600 deposit to my account as well.

I transferred the money from that account to another account, online, then went to BlueCommuniHanna Bank to close that account and open another.

When I had the Olive Garden problem, I talked to a security officer at that national charity. He told me that they get a lot of donations like that. The guy with the phony credit card goes to a public access computer, perhaps at a library, and makes the donation, to see if the account is still active. If it it, then he takes the next step, to plunder the card for his own benefit.

The following day, the officer from BlueCommuniHanna called me, telling me he had contacted their "back office" and obtained some routing numbers for the deposit, and a phone number. I spent all morning on the phone, talking to five different people, each of whom said that they couldn't find anything on the deposit to my account, and transferring me to someone else who surely would be able to help me. Finally, I reached a dead end. Nobody at Bank Of America knew anything. Not. One. Blessed. Thing.

Susquehanna Bank Gets Nasty

Finally, on Thursday, a woman called me, claiming to be a fraud control officer from BlueCommuniHanna. She wanted the $1600 returned ASAP.

I told her that I'd be put to considerable inconvenience and expense because of this unauthorized access to my account. I told her that I wasn't going to spend any more of my time and any more of my money trying to clean up someone else's problem, without compensation. You can have your money back in five minutes, by showing up at my front door.

That wasn't acceptable, she said. I needed to take it to a BlueCommuniHanna branch. I asked her how much she was willing to pay me for all this hassle. When I make a mistake on my checking account, I said, the bank charges me $35. That was an amount I had agreed to, she pointed out. I pointed out that I had not agreed to correcting for their lack of fiduciary responsibility without compensation for my time, aggravation, and expense.

Is This Extortion?

She didn't like that at all. And I don't know for sure that she was associated with BlueCommuniHanna at all. She was just a voice on a phone. I suppose it's likely that she is - but what's going to happen to the money if I return it? Will it go back to Bank Of America? I'd read a lot online about Bank of America and money laundering. Was this part of a money laundering plot?

Or will it go into her pocket? I liked and trusted the people at Blue Ball. They got less likeable and less trustable when they became Commie Banks. Now that they were Susquecentennial Bank, they were downright rude and questionable. She told me that she had frozen my bank account, until they got the money back.

All of a sudden I realized what was going on. She thinks I'm stupid. We're dealing with recurrent failure of the bank to properly perform their fiduciary responsibilities towards me. Should I ask the bank examiners to look into this? I went to the FDIC site, to see exactly what they had to say about the responsibility of banks towards their customers.

The Law Says They Can't Do That

What I found was a federal law that said that in the case of electronic fund transfers, as these were, consumer liability due to unauthorized access was limited to $50, and that only if the bank hadn't protected the consumer's account with PIN numbers, passwords, etc., there was no liability at all. The regulations didn't indicate that the error had to be a withdrawal; a deposit is covered as well. And nobody seems able to explain what happened. Did a BOA customer have my debit card? No.

And that's when it hit me. If the folks at BlueCommuniHanna had been polite, if they'd agreed to come pick up the money instead of demanding that I deliver it to them at my inconvenience and my expense, they'd have had it in minutes. If a customer at Bank of America had contacted me, telling me that he'd transposed two digits and he needs his money back, I'd have been willing to accomodate. But there's something dirty going on.

I think my account was being used in a money laundering scheme. Make one transfer, it goes through OK, so you make a follow-up transfer. Then you transfer the money back, and it looks like I'm participating in a scheme to benefit drug dealers. I've no real problem with people using recreational drugs; I figure it's a problem that solves itself. Evolution in action. But I don't want to participate in criminal activity.

I filed suit with the District Justice on Friday to get my money, deposited at BlueCommuniHanna, back. I don't plan on doing business with them again, ever. They think I'm stupid.

And suggesting that they bear close resemblance to a dog's hind leg is an insult to dogs.

Other Bloggers On Related Topics:
Allstate - Bank of America - Blue Ball National Bank - Community Banks - credit card scams - electronic funds transfer - Geico - H & R Block - money laundering - Olive Garden - Weis Markets - William Coder